Fire Doors in the News

Fire Doors in the News

Happy New Year! I hope you all had some time to relax over the last week or two…there wasn’t a whole lot of relaxing going on at our house thanks to our 3 kids and their friends, but it was a great week to have fun and recharge.

Of course, I didn’t stop reading the news over the holidays, and there were quite a few stories involving fire doors (and one on egress gates)…

This is a great video from @LadywoodFire on Twitter:

Closing interior doors when going to bed at night is vital to saving lives if you have a fire…. this video demonstrates it perfectly!!! pic.twitter.com/uRsfdnLTRP

According to a fire official, flame from a candle spread to a bathrobe worn by a woman in her 70s, who was the only person in the apartment. While trying to remove her clothing, she inadvertently spread the fire through her apartment. When she fled, she left the apartment door open, and wind from the windows whipped the flames through the apartment and into the hallway.

“Biggest problem we had was (the) door was left open, and a large amount of fire got out into the hallway and rest of building,” FDNY Commander Robert Sakowich said.

Heavy smoke then spread throughout the apartment building, overcoming dozens of residents who had evacuated into hallways and stairwells.

The firefighters had been tinkering with the department’s 1998 Chevy Suburban in a “reckless, negligent and careless manner” and parked it in the firehouse, where it sparked an electrical blaze, the Arch Insurance Co. claims in the suit. The suit also notes that the all-volunteer department had left a self-closing fire door propped open, allowing the inferno to travel up a stairwell to the second floor.

Remember my post about the propped-open fire door in a fire station I visited (not the same one)?

Thanks to an assist from a fire-resistant door protecting the living quarters of a Rocklin home, firefighters were able to confine a blazing fire to the garage. Rocklin Fire Department firefighters responded at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Springfield subdivision to find flames devouring a garage attached to a home. Two vehicles in the driveway were also burning.

These videos from the Sacramento Fire Department illustrate the value of a closed garage door…twice in 24 hours!

A quick fix to the problem of fare evaders on BART has been shut down just as fast as it was implemented. That was a decision by the transit agency to bolt closed the swinging exit gates reserved for riders who use wheelchairs or are pushing strollers or bikes. While immediately effective in curbing fare evasion according to BART, fire inspectors were not delighted with the practice, citing a fire code violation and forcing the transit agency to unbolt over a dozen swinging doors as the Chronicle learned.

~~~

And of course, the tragic nightclub attack in Istanbul, which reminds us again of the importance of safe egress and familiarity with the available exits…

Panicked revelers rushed for the exits once the attack started, and some apparently jumped from the club’s patio into the Bosphorus in order to swim away from the carnage. Witnesses said they saw dozens of bodies on the floor of the club, and many of the survivors apparently had to climb over the fallen to escape. Some witnesses reported seeing multiple attackers, but Turkish authorities have said they are currently looking for only one assailant, and video footage of the attack appears to show only one perpetrator.